


Arrow’s Wound

by falsettodrop



Series: Cupid’s Reckoning [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-07-03 23:53:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15829491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop
Summary: Scott and Tessa are in love, but that is not the point. The real question is—are they soulmates?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a reference to Cupid, obviously. This is a fic about love and soulmates, people, what did you expect? 
> 
> This story is composed of two parts, and the update will be posted when I feel motivated enough to write it. Which hopefully you all can help me attain, by leaving me feedback? Fingers crossed that it gets done quickly. The next chapter is already entirely outlined and I’ve begun to write it. It will take on Tessa’s POV, so we’ll get to see where her head is at. For now, we have Scott. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think if you get a chance, and I hope you enjoy! There’s also a Spotify playlist for this story which you can find [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/yk5lzsgicqb896wjlwybvvz4f/playlist/10mwJ66V1x627E4KnegkOA?si=0xXhADusTG-vnAj5DqRTKQ).

**PART I: MONOCHROME**

 

Scott is flying across the ice, and his hands are tingling.

He’s not quite sure whether or not it’s a good thing—the tingling. He thinks that maybe it is; it is a sign that maybe, this time, this partner will be it.

So far, she’s doing pretty great. He’s already been through one official partner and attempted skating with six others, but they each either decided to stop skating or something between them didn’t exactly click. Scott wonders if that’s partially his fault. He’s not exactly an easy person to skate with. His mom calls him impatient, and he’s overheard his teachers telling his mom a few times at parent-teacher conferences that because of that impatience, he’s ‘prone to temper tantrums’. Whatever that means. So, each time he skates with a new partner, he ultimately ends up doing better than them, which is _beyond_ frustrating, and annoys him to no end.

(But, he’s been told, that is a good problem to have. It’s the kind of problem you want. It means he’s doing well, and he has a chance at something great.)

If only he could find the right person to skate with.

Scott loves skating. Sometimes he wonders if he was born with skates attached to his feet. Sometimes he feels like they’re an extension of his body. The motions come so naturally to him that he can’t help but feel like a superhero each time he glides on the ice. _Maybe,_ he thinks, _this is my superpower._

It’s not like hockey, either. Hockey, while fun, does not come as easily to Scott as figure skating. Also, he kind of hates hockey skates. They just aren’t as good as figure skates.

Jumps are another thing that don’t quite come easily to Scott, but he loves _feeling_ the music on the ice. His older brother, Danny, has been ice dancing for the past couple years. Scott has decided that he wants to try it, too.

But he needs the right partner.

This girl—Tessa, he remembers her mom introducing her as—is pretty good. She’s not what Scott would necessarily call a natural, but he heard their moms and his aunt talking and she’s been skating alone for a while. When he looks at her face on the ice, she has her eyebrows scrunched together, as if she is trying not to forget her steps.

He doesn’t need a partner that is a natural, he thinks to himself. Not if they’re as determined as this little human seems to be.

She’s tiny. Her hands are clammy against his, and her mom told his mom who told him that she also does ballet. He tries to imagine this small, serious girl in a tutu, and he has to suppress the amused smile forming on his lips. She’s definitely pretty enough to be a ballerina, but she’s not very relaxed.

Although, she is quite graceful. He can see it. Maybe.

She’s good. And his hands are tingling. And he thinks, maybe, this could be the one.

 

–

 

Tessa has this peculiar habit of surprising him.

She shouldn’t anymore because through the past few years, she has become one of his best friends in the entire world, and he knows almost everything there is to know about her. But she still does. That being said, he still knows her better than most. She’s growing up in front of his eyes, and she’s slightly introverted, but less so with him. He likes that she’s only a certain way with him. It makes him feel special.

He’s methodically tying his skates when he hears the loud banging of the rink doors opening. Right on time, Tessa has entered the rink with her mother in tow. The only reason that Scott is here early is because he lives five minutes away. (Let it be known that Scott is not ever early because he has planned to be.)

He smiles unconsciously as he finishes tying his first skate, watching as she bids her mother farewell and Kate shouts to him from the entrance. “Bye, honey. I’ll see you later, Scott!”

He waves in reply, shouting a goodbye, and begins to tie his second skate, waiting for Tessa to sit next to him. She’s already dressed for training, minus her skates on feet, and she has these dorky little blue butterfly clips in her hair to keep it out of her face. They’re kind of cute.

“Scott,” Tessa says when she reaches him, in a voice far too serious for her age, “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” he says easily. He takes his role as her best friend very seriously, and almost feels a weird sense of responsibility in taking care of her. He turned thirteen a few months ago, so he’s officially a teenager, and Tessa still has a bit to catch up with him, so he feels obligated to guide her in life.

(Scott is kidding himself. Tessa is light years beyond him in maturity, and she’s the one giving him advice most of the time. But nonetheless. He is slightly protective.)

Their friendship is not like the one he has with his buddies, either. His relationship with Tessa is very different from his friendships with his male friends, but he chalks that difference up to the fact that she’s a girl and he’s a boy and it’s so much easier to talk to her about stuff than it is with his other friends. Even if she is two years younger than him.

“Yesterday I was at school, and Jamie started talking about soulmates,” she begins without preamble. If Scott was drinking water, he likely would have choked at this moment. “What do you think about it?”

“Um,” Scott says, taken aback and slightly uncomfortable with this topic of conversation. It’s such an intimate thing to discuss, and not a lot of people discuss it in casual conversation. In fact, it’s more typical for people to not mention the question of soulmates altogether until they turn twenty one. It’s sort of an unspoken rule, because it’s such a _significant_ thing.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting her to want to talk about, but it wasn’t _this_. He didn’t think he’d be having this conversation with Tessa at only eleven. Usually the wonderment came around age thirteen. Scott has barely given the phenomenon much thought himself. “I don’t know. It looks nice in the movies.”

Tessa rolls her eyes. “What movies? You can barely sit through classic soulmate films, like _Casablanca_ and _Gone with the Wind_.”

“Yeah, because they’re _boring_ ,” he states obviously. He doesn’t know why Tessa is watching _Gone with the Wind_ at eleven, anyway, and forcing _him_ to watch it on top of that.

Tessa giggles at his dramatics. “They’re not _boring_... I don’t know, the idea of it seems nice, right? To know that someone out there is meant for you, and you can tell just from a name on your wrist. Seems like a fairytale, almost.”

Scott purses his lips together, stifling a laugh as he takes in the dreamy tone of her voice. Of course princess Tessa, who wanted to be a ballerina when she was younger, would think the concept of soulmates was magical.

He watches her fondly as she stares at the other pairs practicing on the ice, lost in thought, and then shakes his head. He stands up, stretching his legs. “Yeah, yeah. It’s exciting. Whatever. But apparently it won’t happen ‘til we’re twenty one, so stop dreaming about your future boyfriend and start dreaming about us winning our next competition.”

They’re only juniors, but they’re good. Scott has dreams, sometimes, about standing atop a podium at the Olympics.

But he’s only thirteen so he knows that’s probably a _bit_ of an unrealistic goal. Shoot for the stars, though, is what his mom always tells him.

Tessa huffs a laugh, and stands with him, back on track. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s go.”

 

–

 

It is Scott’s fifteenth birthday today, and he’s being forced to throw himself a party.

He isn’t the type to celebrate birthdays in elaborate events like this, and usually he simply enjoys doing relaxing things on days that are special, like Christmas and Thanksgiving. He’s a traditional person. Normally he’d just surround himself with some family, maybe skate with Tess, blow out some candles, hopefully get a gift or two from his parents and a friend. But this time his friends really wanted him to have a party; they said it would be an excuse to get everyone to hang out on a Saturday. And, well, cake. That speaks for itself. So Scott goes along with it, because what’s the worst thing that could happen?

Scott is an idiot. The worst thing that could happen is that he would invite all boys, and obviously he wouldn’t _not_ invite Tessa, because she’s Tessa, and she’d end up being the only girl there.

How awkward. For both him _and_ her.

When she arrives, she doesn’t notice his friends and moves to greet him with the most enthusiastic smile and a, “Happy birthday, Scott!” Then promptly plants a kiss on his cheek in front of all his friends, which is normal for them, but less so in front of his friends who aren’t well-versed in figure skating etiquette. He hears one of his more immature friends unsuccessfully try to hide a snicker, which Tessa most definitely hears by the widening of her eyes and the way she glances behind him and promptly turns red when she realizes they’re in full company.

Beside that moment, it’s not _too_ weird… Tessa eventually just sort of hangs out in the background of all their activities. They play a charades, which isn’t too bad because everyone gets equally involved, but when they’re finished he and the guys start to play video games. She joins in on a few, but then the difference between her level of playing and his friends’ level because staggeringly apparent, and she ends up being cast aside, picking at a loose string on her tights as she sits in the loveseat alone.

His brothers come in and out of the room and talk to her for a bit, but then leave to go somewhere with his dad, so she sits there all pitiful and sad and he hates it.

He feels so terrible about it. He keeps playing with his friends, not wanting their relationship to stand out and for his friends to tease them, but he loses half his games because his mind is occupied by concern over the fact that Tessa is clearly not having a good time.

When she gets up to use the bathroom, his friends pounce on him.

“Yo, man,” Derrick says. “She totally has a crush on you.”

Scott rolls his eyes. Not this again. “She doesn’t. She’s just… Tessa.”

“Yeah, and _Tessa_ likes you,” Paul unhelpfully pipes up from his seat on the couch.

“She really doesn’t! Guys, she’s like my sister.”

“Your sister?” John snorts. “That’s kinda fucked up, dude.”

Everyone laughs at that. _No kidding_ , Scott thinks privately. If he had a sister, he wouldn’t touch her the way he does with Tessa on the ice. But still.

“Drop it. It’s just because of skating, guys,” he says, upset.

(His excuse for everything. But it works.)

He’s beginning to get annoyed with this line of conversation, and his friends can clearly hear that by the edge in his voice. Scott knows that he has a temper, and his friends know it too—so they let it go. “Okay. Just think about it,” Paul says. And turns back to load another game.

There’s nothing to think about, in Scott’s mind. They don’t know his relationship with Tessa at all. They’re just immature teenage guys who think guys and girls can’t be friends.

Idiots.

When Tessa comes back, he decides the guys can go to hell, and amps it up a notch. He moves to sit next to her on the loveseat, probably a little too squished together, and dramatically whispers commentary in her ear for the battle between his friends for the rest of the evening.

See, they’ve just started training at Waterloo, and he really, really thinks that they’ve got a shot at their ice dancing being something… _more_. His friends can think what they want. But he won’t ever let that ruin what he and Tessa have. Not on the ice, and not off it. And he won’t let anything they joke about get between them, either.

When he cuts his cake before they all go, he asks her to feed him first, because she always does it on his birthdays, and why would today be any different?

He can see his friends exchange some looks, but the smile on her face has returned, and that’s all he cares about.

 

–

 

Their move to Canton brings them both success and despair.

It was inevitable—the eventual move, not the success. That comes slower than he would like, but it does come, after hard hours and a lot of sacrifice.

At first, it’s a bit rocky, learning underneath Russian coaches Marina and Igor, who are strict and cold and nothing like their previous coaching staff. But after settling, they realize that the results are coming through, and then they start receiving silver after silver, better than they’ve ever done before. They’re still on the junior level for another year and a half, but Scott begins to hope. If they can win gold at everything next year in Juniors, they have an actual shot on the senior level. It alights him, knowing that his dreams might be within his grasp.

He and Tessa really begin to lean on each other during this time. They go back home a lot, almost every weekend, but when they’re in Michigan, they become each other’s family. If he thought they were best friends before, that’s nothing on how they are now.

Today is an off day for them. Tessa had gone back home for the weekend alone—a rare instance, but she had a family event to go to and he had a date yesterday.

Which was also new. Scott was dating.

He was dating simply because everyone else seemed to. He knew it was kind of pointless—or maybe it wouldn’t be, and he’d find his soulmate before twenty one. Or maybe he could just enjoy his time single and uncommitted until he was forced to settle down, like most, at the ripe age of twenty one (or whenever he would meet his soulmate, but if he knew them by that age, he would have to settle down). He was seventeen, winning silver medals across the globe in ice dance, with a best friend that he adored, and some girls that were into him. The world was at his fingertips.

He steps out of his car, walking alongside the river with two hot chocolates in his hands. Tessa had texted him earlier to meet him at their spot at six, indicating that she had arrived back in Michigan earlier. He thinks nothing of it since they spend every waking moment together off the ice now as well, so he figures she just wants to hang out.

He’s wrong.

As soon as he sits beside her on the bench, he notices the tremble in her shoulders and the way she has fisted up her hands. From her body language he can tell in the way that only he is able to: she’s angry about something—something that happened at home, maybe? He doesn’t know, but he’s worried.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, handing her the drink.

She attempts to muster a smile, but doesn’t succeed. Damn it. He’s going to need more than hot chocolate for this one. “Thanks,” she mutters.

He sits in silence for a while, watching the birds fly over the river. Waiting for her to speak. He doesn’t like to push Tessa, is the thing, and she usually comes to him when she’s ready. But he senses that today she needs a push, so he asks. “How was London?”

“Fine,” she says shortly.

“Just fine?” He asks, probing further as gently as he can.

Something inside her seems to snap. “Do you remember the first time I asked you about soulmates?” She blurts unceremoniously, snapping her head toward him. As if she’s prepared to watch his every move in the conversation to follow.

“Uh,” he says, surprised. “Yes?”

“I thought it would be magical,” she says, as if trying to remind him. He hasn’t forgotten.

“I remember,” he insists. “Why do you ask?”

“Has your mind changed at all? About soulmates?” She looks closely at his eyes, as if trying to figure something out.

He squints. “I’m not sure what could have changed? It’s a thing that will happen to everyone. I don’t particularly feel anything else about it,” he tells her, shrugging. He’s unsure of what she’s looking for, to be honest.

Unfortunately, that seems to be the wrong thing to say. She flinches away, huddling into herself again, and takes a large gulp of her hot chocolate to keep her mouth busy.

He’s silent as he watches her, but he can’t help but ask out of concern. “Tessa? What’s wrong?”

She finishes her swallow, and puts the cup next to her on the bench. And then says evenly, “I was talking to my mom.”

She offers nothing else, so Scott can’t help but prompt her. “Right…” he says, patiently.

“Right. So—” she takes a deep breath, as if steadying herself. “It was just normal talk, you know. We were talking about the phenomenon.” He might look confused, because she clarifies. “Soulmates. And, how caught up everyone gets in it.”

 _Are they not supposed to?_ He thinks. _Your soulmate is your soulmate. How could you not?_

“Then, my mom got this look on her face, so I asked what she wasn’t telling me, because the entire conversation she kept being weird. And she basically told me not to get my hopes up because soulmates weren’t real.”

Wait, what? “What?” Scott says out loud. That’s not how his conversation went with his parents. “Why would she say that?”

“They aren’t real for _us_ ,” she clarifies, calm as ever. “Apparently Virtues don’t _have_ soulmates.”

If she wasn’t so aggressively digging into the grass with the toe of her shoe, Scott wouldn’t be able to tell she was bothered by this particular piece of information.

He’s unbothered by it, personally, simply because it can’t possibly be true.

“Well, that’s impossible,” he says, scoffing. “Everyone has a soulmate.”

“Nope,” Tessa says, popping the ‘p’. “I looked it up afterward, then spent an entire day at the library researching it.”

 _Typical_ , Scott thinks, and stays quiet to allow her to talk.

“For some families, it’s a rarity,” she explains. “Almost like a genetic disorder that is passed on through generations. And apparently mine is one of them.”

Scott doesn’t quite know what to say about this new piece of information. It feels… untrue. He doesn’t really want to believe it’s true, for some reason. “It may be _rare_ … but not impossible, right?” He tries. “I’m sure you’ll have one, too.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tessa says, trying to seem unbothered. “It doesn’t matter.” She dusts off her shoe, which is now covered in dirt, and stands, hovering over him but not looking at him.

Clearly it does matter. Scott grabs her hand before she can walk away. “Hey. Listen to me. Soulmates don’t mean anything,” he tries, softly. “Anything can happen.”

Tessa refuses to meet his eyes, which usually really irks him, but right now he understands why. “You don’t have to say that for me,” she says, with an edge to her voice. “You said a few moments ago that your thoughts hadn’t changed. So don’t lie for my sake.”

He sighs, frustrated. _But this changes everything_ , he wants to tell her. _How?_ She would probably ask in return. He doesn’t know how. It just does.

“I really believe that you have a soulmate, T,” he says, more determined than ever. It can’t be true. It can’t.

She finally meets his eyes, and then asks in a quiet, steady voice that chills him: “Who are you trying to convince?”

He’s not sure.

All he knows is that it can’t be true. And they have a long wait before they find out if it is.

 

–

 

Scott spends the next year of his life flirting his way through half the girls he meets.

It kind of drives Tessa insane.

She corners him after practice one particularly brutal day of seeing him flirt with a volunteer at the rink between breaks. “Are you proud of yourself?” She asks, looking completely unamused.

He’s bemused. “For what?” He asks, taking a drink of his water bottle.

“For becoming the biggest manwhore at Arctic Edge,” she says frostily.

“ _Hey_ ,” he says, furrowing his brows. “That’s mean. I haven’t hooked up with anyone since Erica, and that was months ago.”

“Yeah, but you flirt with anything with a vagina,” Tessa snorts, putting on her jacket. Her blunt words shake him. “Why even bother? I don’t get it.”

 _Why bother, when you know you’re going to have a soulmate?_ Is what she means. It goes unsaid between the two of them, but he knows what she means.

He shrugs. “I don’t know… getting out of my system, maybe,” he says, clearly bullshitting, looking for his skate guards in place of meeting her eyes.

The truth is that it’s a distraction. The only distraction he has when everything in his head is a complete mess.

“Hm,” he hears Tessa say, pointlessly. “Well, maybe stop doing it in front of everyone? It’s getting kind of out of hand.”

“Why?” He asks suddenly, confused by her mood. “Are you jealous, or something?”

He sees Tessa freeze briefly, out of the corner of his eye, maybe from surprise at his insinuation, but she recovers quickly. He’s already regretting his stupid impulsive comment when she replies, “Ha, as if. It’s just gross, that’s all.”

“Okay, sorry,” he mutters.

When he gets home that night, he thinks about the incident and comes to a theory about how it must seem to her. Scott knows that he’ll have a soulmate. All the men in his lineage have met the great loves of their lives at twenty one. And despite knowing that there’s a special person out there waiting for him, he’s off flirting with everything wearing a skirt. He’s almost taking his assurance for granted, knowing that he’ll end up with a soulmate.

Suddenly, he feels horrible, and he vows to not do it anymore. He didn’t mean to shove it in her face. He doesn’t know how she must be feeling after her mom’s announcement and what she discovered, and he’s not sure how he would feel in her place.

Scott is so sure of his mark. Tessa doesn’t even know if hers is a possibility.

 

–

 

He’s dropping her home one day when he realizes.

He walks her to her door because it’s late and he always does. He gives her back her gym bag, because he always takes it for her from his car, and when she says bye and kisses him on the cheek like always, he turns his head a bit to the side to test something.

Her lips catch the corner of his mouth. She freezes, and he breathes her in.

Three facts: she’s soft, everywhere. She smells like strawberries. She is everything to him.

Tessa pulls away when she recollects herself and bids him goodbye, acting as if it never happened. Her greatest specialty.

Scott drives home that night, the corner of his lips burning. And he knows.

 

++

The thing is that: Tessa is Scott’s best friend, and he loves her with every piece of himself. Every whole piece, every broken piece, every piece in progress. They are all hers.

The thing is that: Tessa understands Scott so intrinsically, so complexly, that he’s not quite sure how she musters it. They’ve had to work at moulding their bond, and communicating with each other, but the part of her that understands him instinctively, as if it’s second nature, and the part of him that understands her, despite them being completely different… that comes so naturally to them that it scares him.

The thing is that: Tessa is shy when she sings. She says that she can’t sing, but Scott knows better. She’s unpracticed, sure, but only because she rarely uses her voice. And somehow he’s still the only person she will allow herself to sing around.

The thing is that: Scott being the only person who knows what Tessa’s voice sounds like makes him feel like floating on air. Scott thinks Tessa sounds like an angel. But he’s not sure if that’s because she actually does sound like one, or if it’s because to him, she is one.

The thing is that: Scott really believes that Tessa, in some way, has saved him. From what, he doesn’t know, but that’s the way that he _feels_ , deep in his bones. She is his kindred spirit. He falls asleep every night wondering if she feels the same way.

++

 

He is not drunk, but maybe he should be.

They’re at Charlie’s birthday party, an excuse for all the skaters and teenagers in Canton to get together and let loose, and they’ve both had a couple drinks.

They don’t usually do this sort of thing because of their dietary restrictions and the fact that they’re elite athletes, so they spend most of their time training. Scott goes to a couple parties here and there, but never with Tessa—she’s more of a stay at home and veg out type of person.

She says that this isn’t her scene. He calls bullshit. It sure as hell looks like it is from how comfortable she seems right now.

He should be drunk. But he feels terrifyingly sober tonight.

He’s not drunk when he watches her dance with some people in the living room, a rarity for her as she usually doesn’t to not attract attention. Today, she doesn’t look like she cares, hips swinging in time with the music, similar but also very, very different to the way they do when they practice a routine.

He’s not drunk when he goes up to her and whispers in her ear, “Do you want another drink?”

He’s not drunk when she looks at him, shivering and hazy, and ignores his question to say, “Come with me.”

She intertwines their fingers as she pulls him across the kitchen, which isn’t unusual for them, so no one pays them any mind. The kitchen is empty and dark since everyone is mingling in the other room and that’s also where they’re keeping all the food and drinks.

She hops up on the kitchen counter clumsily, almost-finished drink in one hand, and then motions for him to come closer with her fingers. He probably shouldn’t, but he does anyway. She’s wearing a skirt, so he puts his hand on her bare knee—nothing he’s never done before, but it feels different in this moment. He probably shouldn’t, but he does anyway. She has her hair curled, messy but framing her face and she looks so pretty, so he stares at her face a little in awe that this is his best friend. He probably shouldn’t, but he does anyway.

Then she starts giggling out of nowhere, trying to muffle her laugh with her free hand.

“Tess?” He asks, extremely confused. The mood is effectively ruined. “You good?”

She laughs harder at his confusion, resting her forehead on his shoulder as she shakes with mirth. “The look on your face,” she tries to explain between gasping breaths. Which means nothing to him, because it’s complete gibberish.

He rolls his eyes, amused. “How drunk _are_ you?”

She gasps faux-dramatically, putting a finger to his lips to quiet him. “I’m not _drunk_ , Scott Moir. I’m simply… a little buzzed.” She seems all too satisfied with her answer from the giddy smile on her face.

“Buzzed,” he repeats. “That’s bull. How many drinks did you have?”

“ _Hmmmmm_ ,” she says, dragging the sound out and squinting her eyes. “Maybe four? Five, max.”

“God,” he groans. “You’re such a lightweight.”

“You’re one to talk, mister Moir!” She says, affronted, slapping his shoulder too aggressively and sloshing around her drink. “You can get drunk off of five drinks too.”

“Well, I’m not drunk tonight,” he tells her.

“ _Why not_?” She whines, then holds her own drink to his lips. “It’s so fun! Here, babe, drink this.”

 _Babe?_ He thinks, as he drinks what she forces him to. _Probably a slip of the tongue,_ he tells himself. Probably. Probably.

Okay, now he feels drunk, but it’s not because of the alcohol.

She makes him finish the drink, and he does so holding her gaze. She pulls the cup away when he’s finished and rests it beside her on the counter.

“I haven’t seen you like this in a while,” he remarks lightly. He moves the drink further away because knowing Tessa’s clumsiness, it could have easily gotten knocked over in the next few minutes.

She shrugs, drunken smile on her face. “Marina’s got me on a new diet. No alcohol. I don’t like to drink much anyway.”

He scrunches his brows in annoyance. “You don’t need to be on a diet. You’re perfect.”

Tessa raises a hand to his face to smooth out the furrow on his forehead. He instantly relaxes at her touch. “Thank you, but I’m not perfect, Scott.”

“You are to me,” he says quietly.

Tessa gets this impossibly fond look in her eyes—the same look she gets when he rubs her feet without her asking, or sneaks her chocolate behind their coaches backs after they’ve had a rough practice. “You’re sweet,” she says. “Hey! I have an idea. Let’s dance.”

“We dance everyday,” he points out obviously as she hops of the kitchen top.

She shakes her head. She moves them to the middle of the kitchen and puts her arms around him, pressed up against him with her head resting on his chest, right above his heart. “Not like this,” she whispers.

It’s not any kind of dance hold that he knows. It’s far too intimate and unpracticed to be that. But he thinks that this might be his favourite dance that they’ve ever done together.

They sway there for a while in silence, for so long that he starts wondering why no one has gone looking for them, and then Tessa says against him, “Sing to me, Scott.”

He chuckles quietly. “Sing what?”

“Whatever your heart desires.”

He thinks. And then he remembers a trip they took back to London, where his radio died and Tessa forced him listen to her music (and most notably, this song) over and over again until he got sick of it.

“ _Sometimes I feel good, and times I feel used_ …”

Tessa giggles into his chest. He’s pretty sure she wasn’t expecting Fallin’ by Alicia Keys, and it’s definitely not a very him-choice, but he thinks of her every time he hears it. Because of the incident. And some other reasons.

When he gets to the chorus, singing quietly and off-key, he hears Tessa’s angelic voice join him for the last couple lines. “ _I never loved someone, the way that I love you_.”

“T,” he says in a small voice, goosebumps all over his arms. He rests his check atop her head, and he can hear his heart pounding inside his chest from his ears, so hard that it feels like it’s trying to escape. He’s sure that she can hear it too, as her head is resting right against it, but she says nothing.

“Scott,” she says in reply, as if the word almost hurts her.

“Look at me,” he begs. “Please.”

She does, and she looks far more aware of herself than she did earlier. He wonders if the moment has sobered her as well. She doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything.

He feels paralyzed, and he can’t bear to move, so he doesn’t. And when she stands on her toes kiss him, he welcomes it like it’s given him a reason to breathe.

It’s short. Far too short. She pulls away, gasping, and he moves his hands up to her face to cradle it. “Tess,” he murmurs, and slots their lips together again, brushing them against hers over and over again, savouring their softness. Now that’s he’s started, he doesn’t want to stop. She’s amazing. She kisses him back, and he can feel his legs turn to jelly.

Then she pulls away again, too soon. “God, Scott, we can’t do this,” she rushes out, and runs away so fast that he can’t even register the movement.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

One minute he is kissing her, and the next he is alone. He’s slow to realize that she actually physically left the room, but when he does, he feels it rip open his chest.

 _No_ , he thinks. He won’t let her run away from him.

He leaves the kitchen and searches the house. She isn’t downstairs, so he thinks that she might have left, which upsets him even more, but then Meryl comes down the stairs and he realizes that she might have gone to hide upstairs.

“Is Tessa upstairs?” He asks Meryl.

There’s a desperate tone to his voice that she seems to register from the flicker of concern in her eyes, so she says, gesturing vaguely, “Yeah. Yes. She wanted to use the bathroom.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you,” he exclaims, hugging her and running up the stairs. She probably thinks he’s insane. Not that she didn’t before.

When he gets to the bathroom, he knocks five times and asks, “Tessa, are you there?”

No response. But the light is on, so intuitively, he knows. “Tessa, let me in there. I’m not afraid to make a scene.”

“Leave me alone, Scott, please,” he can hear her muffled voice say.

He won’t let her get out of it that easily. “I’ll be loud!” He threatens.

He hears a bang, as if she’s dropped something inside the bathroom, and then she opens the door quickly. “You’re ridiculous,” she says angrily.

“Oh, _I’m_ ridiculous?” He asks, offended. He moves to join her inside, shutting and locking the door. “ _You_ ran away! We don’t run away from each other.”

She crosses her arms. “We also don’t do _that_ with each other, but I guess tonight is a night of firsts!”

“ _You_ kissed _me_!” Scott says loudly.

She laughs, as if amazed with him. “Please! You _wanted me_ to! The look on your face all night!”

He’s gets quiet at that, because she’s right, of course. But then he says in a small voice—“It’s no different from how I usually look at you.”

Suddenly, it’s too silent in the bathroom. He can still hear the pounding of the music downstairs, but all he cares about is the devastated look on Tessa’s face. Like she’s hearing everything she has always wanted to, but has also never wanted to. Like he’s making both her brightest dreams and worst nightmares come true.

“Scott,” she chokes out, shaking her head. “We can’t.”

He tries to move closer to her, but she instantly backs away from him, so he stops. “But… why?”

“You know why,” she says, sharper than knives. Enunciating every word. There are tears in her eyes, and he hates himself for putting them there.

Scott inhales. “We could be.”

He says it vaguely, because if he says it explicitly, he might die.

She shakes her head. “We _won’t_ be.”

“But what if we are?” He tries desperately. “Why—why can’t you just—hope, and _believe_ in us?”

“Because,” she says, shuddering. She rubs her bare arms, and he notices that she’s shivering in this bathroom. Is she cold? He wants to hold her, but he doesn’t think she’ll allow him to. She won’t even allow him to love her.

Silence coats every inch of the room, stifling him beyond measure.

He watches Tessa breathe deeply, as if steeling herself for what she’s about to say. It comes out, stumbling, because when Tessa is emotional she isn’t articulate. “Scott, you know that I love you, but I… I can’t. You find out _in two years._ That is so, _so_ close. If we are, then we are, but… if we aren’t… and we do this now…”

Scott simply looks at her. And he understands.

“If we do this now, and it’s not me,” she says in a wavering voice, as if it is painful to utter the words. “It will destroy me.”

She doesn’t get it. ‘It’ being the fact that it would destroy him, too. That’s the thing. They’re in this together. But he doesn’t think that Tessa understands that they don’t have to be alone. He doesn’t want to be. He never is, as long as she’s there.

But that isn’t what she needs from him now. What she needs is for him to wait. And for him to accept this. And for them to go home, and pretend this never happened.

“Okay,” he says, giving in, exhausted. “Okay.”

She exhales, relieved, and then nods at him. And he nods back—heartbroken.

 

–

 

It’s difficult moving forward knowing what they now know. It’s difficult waiting.

It’s an entirely different game. Things were said, actions were done, and they can’t take any of it back. Not that Scott wants to. It’s just… the waiting. It’s going to kill him, he thinks.

They’re waiting until Scott gets his mark.

The weight of that sentence suffocates him.

Not because he doesn’t believe it’s her—in his mind, there’s no way that it’s _not_. She is Tessa. His best friend. His first crush. His purest love. If it isn’t Tessa, he’s going to have a good laugh at the universe, because _really_? There’s absolutely no fucking way.

(And yet, there is a slight chance that it might not be, and it eats him alive every night.)

Nevertheless. Scott is optimistic. He’s so, so positive about this. Because there are so many good things that came from that night, regardless of the heaviness of what happened and how significant it was for both of them.

See, Scott now knows that he isn’t crazy. Tessa cares about him too. She _loves_ him. He’s sure of that, now. He’s so hopeful.

She might not believe in their ability to be soulmates as much as him, and that does nag him a bit, but only because _he_ is so optimistic about it. She’s the opposite side to him in almost every way. Her pessimism, while it annoys him, also always keeps him in check. He’s able to look at things in a different way because of Tessa’s different way of perceiving life.

They balance each other in the best ways. In the right ways. There’s no way they can’t be soulmates.

(And yet. There is a chance.)

After that night, he wakes up and feels like an entirely different person. So many things are now different, and also the exact same. She’s the same old Tessa. He adores her in the same way. But now it’s just… _more_.

She treats him weirdly, though, the first week that they’re back at the rink after that night. There’s too much distance between them—so much, and it shows in their ice dancing.

He refuses to let what happened between them ruin them, and everything they’ve worked for. They only just started settling into their place in the senior circuit, and he’s not going to let one kiss put their career down the drain.

So, two weeks in, when their practices remain stilted, he asks her to spend the evening with him after practice. This has gone on for far too long and they don’t have time to waste.

“Tess,” he says, catching her elbow before she bolts to the changeroom alone. “Are you busy later?”

Tessa looks like every particle in her body is screaming at her to say yes, but she also can’t lie to him for shit. “Uh, no,” she says hesitantly, “Why?”

“Let’s hang out,” he says, trying to catch her eye.

Her eyes dart around, like she doesn’t want him paying close attention to them. “Scott, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

“T,” he says firmly. “It’s _just_ hanging out. Nothing more.”

She bites her lip. “I don’t know…”

“No funny business. I promise! We can watch a movie and I’ll cook for you. Come on, I haven’t done that in ages,” he says persuasively.

She sighs, giving in, knowing that he won’t let up because while Tessa is stubborn as hell, he can also put up a good fight if he believes in something. And this is clearly something he believes in. “Alright. I’m going to go home and shower, then I’ll come to your place.”

He narrows his eyes. “You better actually show up. Don’t bail on me.”

“I won’t!” She says haughtily, as if that’s not in her nature. Which it totally is, but she won’t do it now that he’s already said she can’t. She leaves without saying goodbye, which makes him worry that he annoyed her too much into spending time with him.

That’s put to rest when an hour later, while he’s picking up some groceries for their dinner, he receives a text from her simply saying, _I get to pick the movie_.

He grins. _So what I’m getting from this is that I have to cook for you AND put up with your choice of movie, which will likely be something Audrey Hepburn or some old black and white thing?_

It’s all in jest, which he hopes she gets, but he’s unsure of where they stand nowadays. Luckily, she gets it, as he can tell when she replies, _Yep. I’m the guest of honour, so it only makes sense!_

She signs it with the weirdest BBM emoticon that has a tongue sticking out. He looks at it both happily and bemusedly. He has no idea where she finds that shit.

Later that night, while they’re eating the steak and potatoes that he made them both and sipping on their respective glasses of red wine, he catches her gazing at him after a moment where he isn’t paying attention.

“What is it, Tess?” Scott asks. “Something in my teeth?”

She smiles at him, shyly. “No,” she murmurs. “Just glad we did this.”

He takes in the sweet look on her face, and smiles back.

Maybe they will be fine.

 

–

 

It all comes out in couples therapy a couple months after Tessa turns nineteen.

Not the soulmate-kiss-romantic stuff. That, they’ve had an unspoken agreement, is off-limits during these discussions. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but he isn’t quite sure he’s ready to approach that topic of conversation with a third party. He’d rather keep it between him and Tessa for the time being.

They’ve gone back to normal, for the most part. They’ve won second place at the World Championships, which is more than they could’ve ever hoped for this quickly. They’re on track for the Olympics. They hang out sometimes. They ignore what happened. It’s what they’re best at, after all—ignoring their own feelings.

But then Tessa arranges for them to see their therapist on a day when they aren’t scheduled to have an appointment and when he gets there, Marina and Igor are there as well.

He laughs, after he takes in the scene of the room. It looks like a funeral from the expressions on their faces. “Did someone die?” He jokes as he sits next to Tessa on the couch, attempting to crack the tension in the room.

“Scott,” Marina greets shortly. “Sit.”

He swallows. Is this a confrontation for him? He thinks back quickly, sifting through the moments he’s been off for the past while. There isn’t anything that particularly stands out to him that he’s done wrong, but he might just be oblivious.

Suddenly, he starts to panic. “Did I do something wrong?” He asks Tessa, watching her face carefully. She’s the one he knows best, so he’ll be able to see what it’s about the easiest.

Her shuttered expression evaporates. “No! No, not at all, Scott,” she says quickly to reassure him. She knows how worried he gets and how he might have eaten himself alive if she didn’t instinctively say no, so he breathes a sigh of relief at the honest tone of her voice.

“Actually, this is about me,” she says, and then rushes out, as if she isn’t about to change his life: “I need surgery.”

Fuck.

“What?” He asks, sharp and confused. He knows Tessa’s been having some leg problems because they’re open about their struggles during practices, but he thought she was working past it. “I thought you and your physiotherapist were fixing the muscle issue?”

Tessa is silent. She can tell he’s thrown, and he suddenly regrets his tone. She tends to internalize it when he’s upset.

Marina decides to cut in. “It’s not a muscle issue like we thought,” she explains. “Tessa has compartment syndrome.”

He looks at everyone, blankly. “What does that mean? Is it serious?”

Igor looks at him steadily and says, “It’s serious enough to need to have surgery.”

“Apparently it’s an over _use_ of the muscle tissue,” Tessa cuts in, quietly, as if it’s her fault that she’s dealing with this. “I’ve been practising too hard. Using the muscles in my leg too much. And now…”

Her voice breaks. His heart breaks.

“T,” he says seriously. “Hey. Look at me.”

She doesn’t, so he rests his palm against her cheek, gently turning her face toward his. She goes easily, and he sees the tears gathering in her eyes. Angry, sad, and disappointed. In herself, most likely, he realizes.

She rests the weight of her face against his hand, and he brushes a thumb across her cheekbone. “It’s not your fault,” he whispers. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s not _okay_ , Scott,” she says angrily.

“I know that,” he murmurs, empathetically. Suddenly, he realizes that he needs to be the stronger person here, no matter how difficult this is for him too. Tessa is hurting now, both physically and emotionally, and he needs to get her through it. So he will. “It’s unfair. You shouldn’t be punished for working hard. But life fucking sucks sometimes, right?”

She nods into his hand. “Right,” she mutters tonelessly.

“You need the surgery,” he says, trying to separate his emotions from his words and think as logically as possible. He is the optimist between them, after all. “I’ll work hard while you recover. We can do this.”

She makes a shuddering noise, and then breathes out, “Yeah. Together.”

Together.

The word calms the both of them, the same way it does before they take the ice.

Scott gives Tessa the most encouraging smile he can muster, and then moves his hand from her face to intertwine their fingers.

For the rest of the meeting, they listen to Marina and Igor’s game plan for the upcoming months. Tessa is to have surgery in October, which is three months from now. They’ll do some mental preparation for the next few months, release a statement to Skate Canada, and Scott will practice while Tessa is away. Their therapist insists that they’ll both need to check in with her, both away and apart, to make this go as smoothly as possible. They agree with all of it.

He doesn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the session.

 

–

 

One month later, two months before Tessa’s surgery, and three days before Scott is finally about turn twenty one, Tessa loses it.

It starts when she texts him, _Busy? Come over_. It’s cryptic, but Tessa can be cryptic sometimes, so Scott doesn’t think much of it.

He replies: _Now?_ , because it’s kind of late. Not too late, but nine at night, and they tend to sleep around ten these days. But they have some days off for the next week, so when she says, _Yeah, if you want_ , he definitely does want, so he gets in his car and drives to hers.

When he rings her doorbell, his breath gets knocked out of his chest when she opens the door and he takes her in. She’s not wearing anything special—just a sports bra and some leggings, which is kind of typical of her, but still. Seeing her in minimal clothing is always a pleasure.

“Should I have brought my workout gear?” Scott says jokingly as he shrugs off his jacket.

“What?” Tessa asks, distractedly, and then realizes. “Oh! No, sorry, let me go change. I was finishing some yoga when I texted you.”

“Aw, you don’t have to,” he says, grabbing her elbow to stop her. “You’re as pretty as ever.”

Tessa flushes, and then punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Shush, you sweet talker.”

He laughs at that, and moves into her common area to sit on her couch. “So… is there a reason why you asked me to come over?”

“Nah, I just wanted to hang out,” she says from the other room. He gets a weird vibe from the tone of her voice, almost like she’s lying, but he can’t see her face to really tell so he shrugs it off.

“Okay,” he says easily. “Want to watch something?”

She reappears from the kitchen with two glasses of wine, one of red for him and one of white for her. Their own personal preferences. He doesn’t even need to ask anymore.

“Sure,” she says, resting both on the table in front of them. “You can pick, since I forced you over here.”

He grabs her hand and pulls him to sit so close to him that she’s almost in his lap. “You know I love hanging out with you, T,” he says reassuringly. “It’s not like it was a burden.”

“Hm,” she says absently, with a weird smile on her face.

He picks _Juno_ , because it came out last year and Tessa already owns it on DVD. And also because Scott is a bit of a sucker for teen romance movies, but no one really knows that other than her.

She says nothing, and sinks into the side of him. Thirty minutes in, his arm has moved off the back of the couch to around Tessa’s shoulder, and she’s cuddling into him a bit.

He’d be more focused on the movie if he wasn’t so… well, confused. Because it’s been awhile since him and T did something like this together.

The thing is, they’ve cooled off a lot on the off-ice affection since their kiss last year. Not because Scott has wanted to, but because Tessa did—not that they had an explicit conversation about it. It’s just that he seems to follow Tessa’s lead, these days. What Tessa wants, she will get with him. He doesn’t have much self-control around her. And he’ll take anything she’ll be willing to give him, for the time being.

Sometimes it frustrates him, when he thinks too hard about it. But usually he just accepts it as it is, because he loves her too much to fight it.

Mid-way through the movie, he can feel Tessa press an absent-minded kiss into his chest. He smiles against her head, which he has tucked under his, and tightens his grip on her. He really does adore her and these little moments. And no one would suspect it, but Tessa is just as emotional as he is. He’s just more expressive about it, while Tessa hides herself from the world.

(A lot of the time, she hides from him too. But this doesn’t seem to be one of those times.)

He feels her nuzzle against him, and he allows her to, pressing a kiss into her forehead. She’s cuddly today, and he welcomes it. He loves cuddles.

But then she does something weird.

She moves her hand, which she had wrapped around his waist, to the bottom of his shirt. And then slips it under, to touch his stomach, slowly.

He sucks in a breath, stomach clenching as she rubs her hand against his abdomen. _Is she_ _trying what he thinks she is?_

He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, but then she scrapes her nails against him and _that’s_ something that he didn’t think anyone knew he particularly liked. But Tessa does. Because of course she does. He shudders in response, and whispers, “T, what are you—”

“Shh,” she says, to quiet him, and presses her nails in firmer, which feels _so good_. God. “Scott, I want you.”

He can feel his blood rushing through his ears. “What—”

“Please,” she whimpers, kissing his chest through his shirt again, and then pull away from him to get a better grab of his shirt and pull it off of him. He’s so taken aback that he doesn’t even realize that she has successfully got it off of him because he was so complacent. “Please, Scott. Let’s do it.”

His heart stops. “Do what?” He whispers, shakily. _She can’t possibly mean_ —

“Fuck me,” she says unceremoniously. And he loses his mind, because she proceeds to get onto his lap and kiss him.

And fuck, what a kiss it is. It’s both everything their first kiss was, and nothing like that at all. She kisses him slowly, pressing their lips together softly, as if testing the waters. And then harder, more firmly, when he reciprocates. She slips in a little tongue, maybe too soon, but Scott doesn’t care, because it’s Tessa and it’s her tongue and it’s _in his mouth_.

God, he wants to eat her alive. When he feels her tongue against his, he feels his heart floating away from his body.

She pulls away for a moment, and noses at his cheekbone. “Scott,” she whispers again, just for him to hear. His heart melts at the display.

“Tess,” he whispers back. He loves her, _he loves her_.

After that, she kisses him again with a sudden urgency. She’s holding onto his shoulders so hard that he’s sure it’ll leave a bruise, but he likes it because it brings him back to the present moment. Tessa always has a knack for doing that.

He’s a bit shocked by the way she’s kissing him, because it’s nothing like the sweet way that he expected to be, and it’s nothing like their first kiss, but he also doesn’t care because _it’s so fucking good_. Her intensity alights a fire inside of him, and when she sucks his bottom lip into her mouth, he moans unconsciously, because fuck, she’s going to kill him. He loves her, he wants her, he wants to do what she asked him to so fucking bad.

She legs are spread apart on either side of him and she grinds into his lap, firmly and surely like she knows exactly what she’s doing, and he realizes that he’s been hard from the moment he felt the first whispers of her tongue. She’s so warm, pressing down into him, and he hates himself for wearing jeans. She’s just in some leggings and he could’ve easily just—

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, hearing her moan as she grinds down again, desperately.

He pulls away to catch his breath for a moment, and she turns to his jaw and sucks so hard that he’s sure there will be a hickey tomorrow. “Fuck, T,” he groans, “What’s gotten into you?”

She answers him with another kiss, and this time it hurts. Hurts in a good way, in the best way possible. She bites at his lip, and then he realizes—she’s kissing him like it’s her last chance.

It’s like a bucket of cold water hits him when the thought comes into his consciousness.

He pulls away, yet again, and says firmly, “Tessa.”

“ _No_ ,” she whimpers, bringing her hand up from his shoulders to his hair and fisting them. “Please,” she says, and moves to suck on his neck.

“No, Tessa,” he says, and suddenly he feels like he wants to cry, because it’s so good but it’s so _wrong_ , and they can’t. “Stop. We can’t.”

She pulls away like he’s burned her. “Fuck,” she says, voice cracking and scrambling off his lap. “Why don’t you _want_ me?”

She sounds close to tears, and he hates himself for stopping, but he also knows that if they follow through with this she will end up hating him. And he can’t live in a world where Tessa hates him.

He breathes heavily, trying to catch his breath. “Are you joking?” He says. “You were on top of me. You know. Wanting you is not the issue.”

“Then what _is_? ” She asks, and then the tears start falling from her eyes.

Here’s the thing about Tessa: she doesn’t cry. But when she starts, it’s hard to stop.

“Tess,” he murmurs, and doesn’t know what to say other than the truth. “I love you.”

Her head snaps up, and the streaks of tears on her face breaks his heart. “Then why did you—”

“Because,” he says shortly, and then shakes his head. “Not like this.”

He looks at her, taking her in, and she’s beautiful. Chest heaving, lips bruised red from kissing him too hard, hair a goddamn mess because he’s pretty sure he was pulling on it but he can’t even recall it because he was so in the moment.

“Not because you’re scared,” he whispers, and knows he’s right when she looks away in guilt. “I know you’re scared, T. I’m scared too. But I also have so much _belief_ that… it will be you.”

“How can you be so sure?” She says, and his heart hurts.

He reaches out to hold her hand, and he makes sure he holds her gaze when he says: “Because, if it’s not you, then everything I’ve ever known would be a fucking joke. Because I don’t want to live in a world where something so obvious would not be true. Because Tessa, you’re my soulmate. You are. I know that you are. I could never love anyone else the way I love you.”

He kisses her forehead, after. Her eyes are still full of tears, but she looks at him in a way that he can’t entirely place. Like she loves him, but she wishes she didn’t. Like she wishes she could believe as hard as he did, but she can’t.

“Listen to me,” he says steadily. “I was born at 1:07am on the 2nd. When I find out... I’ll come to you. This will all have been some stupid nightmare that we were worried about for no reason. And we can finally be together.”

He says it simply, as if it’s that easy.

(He knows that it isn’t, but he hopes it is anyway.)

“Okay,” she whispers, and then wraps her arms around him to hug him, holding him in her arms. He hugs her back with everything in him, and when he lets go, he gets up, grabs his shirt, and leaves. There’s nothing more to say.

He leaves her with a heavy heart. Heavy—filled with dread, anticipation, and hope.

 

–

 

He is quite literally waiting outside of Tessa’s apartment when he gets his mark.

He parks outside of it a street away so he’s close enough to her as she’ll allow him to be. He wants to be as close to her as possible when he sees her name on his wrist. It’s supposed to be a magical moment—the most magical moment of his life. He wishes he was with her, but he knows she wouldn’t let him. So for now, he has this.

(Inside, he knows that he’s parked far away, enough that she can’t see him if she looks outside his window, because if it’s _not_ her name on his wrist… he doesn’t know how he will cope. He doesn’t know how he will survive.)

He’s already been there for ten minutes. He couldn’t stay still in his own apartment—he’s been jittery and full of spirit despite not drinking any coffee, even after he went on a nighttime workout session to rid himself of the extra energy. He can’t shake the feeling tonight.

He sits in his car, listening to the static of the radio. He doesn’t want to hear any music right now. He just wants to hear his own breathing, and think of her. He wants to think of her so much that it can’t possibly be anyone’s name other than hers on his hand. He wants to will it into existence.

He sits in his car, waiting. He sits in his car, breathing. He sits in his car, hoping.

When 1:07am comes, he is there. In his car. Praying.

He prays that the name will be hers. He prays so hard that he feels it on his arm.

He prays. Then, he looks down and takes in the sight of his wrist...

Branded with a name that is not hers.

And he cries.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I say anything else: sorry for the two month delay, writing ruts are the worst. But it’s finally here! (I definitely recommend rereading the previous chapter for a refresher since it has been a while.)
> 
> I loved writing this. It brought me so much satisfaction. Reading all of your lovely messages was honestly the cherry on top. I hope that those hesitant to pick up a work-in-progress can now devour this long thing rest-assured that it is complete. To them I say, lucky bastards, you didn't even properly experience the heartbreak of the reveal! (I'm kidding, hahaha.)
> 
> So, here it is. The final instalment and Tessa’s POV. It might be littered with little grammatical errors which will be fixed in the upcoming days. I hope you all enjoy it, and thanks for coming along with me on this ride. The Spotify playlist for this story can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/yk5lzsgicqb896wjlwybvvz4f/playlist/10mwJ66V1x627E4KnegkOA?si=0xXhADusTG-vnAj5DqRTKQ), and for this chapter you can listen from _Fiction_. See you again in the tag sometime soon!

**PART II: KALEIDOSCOPIC**

 

The second of September comes and Tessa is restless.

She glances at her bedside to read the clock. 12:00 am. If this was any other year, and she was still awake at this exact time, she’d text Scott. She’d wish him a happy birthday.

Unfortunately, she’s not quite sure if this birthday will be a happy one.

Tessa wishes with every bit of her that she could believe as wholeheartedly as Scott does. But she is a jaded realist, and she knows that the world is not as perfect as everyone thinks it is. In contrast, Scott is an hopeful idealist. She admires him for that. She loves him for it. But she cannot even begin to fathom his unwavering faith in the higher deities.

She holds back from wishing him, knowing that if his mark appears and it _is_ her, he will come to her like he said he would. And so she lies in her bed, and waits.

She lies, counting the seconds. She lets the motion of it soothe her. She counts to three thousand and five hundred, not caring that it might look crazy to whatever higher power might be watching her. It helps. It eases the anxiety in her chest trapping her heart, caging her in.

When she reaches three thousand six hundred, she stops counting. Seven minutes. Seven minutes until she knows.

 _Seven is a lucky number, right?_ She thinks to herself. _Seven until I know. Seven, seven, seven. Please let it be me. Please._

She prays. She prays for what feels like eternity. She prays for the first time in forever. The thing is, Tessa isn’t Scott; Scott who believes in a God, who wears his cross necklace to every competition, who allows his beliefs to soothe him in times of distress. Tessa isn’t Scott. She doesn’t know what exactly she believes in. Scott believes in a lot of things. Scott believes in them.

All that she knows, all that she believes—is that she loves him.

(She prays it’s enough.)

She doesn’t dare glance at the clock. She truly can’t. She loses track of it and doesn’t know if it’s been three minutes or seven minutes or an hour. She simply lies there and waits, hoping that Scott will put her out of her misery. That her doorbell will ring, and she’ll race downstairs and _Scott_ , Scott will be here and her name will be on his wrist and he’ll kiss her, and finally, _finally_ , they can be—

Her phone buzzes. Her heart stutters. Her eyes sting.

When she looks at her phone and sees Scott’s name there—not even calling her, but texting her—she knows. She knows then, without even attempting to read, what has happened.

She exhales and turns off her phone, suddenly exhausted. She shuts her eyes, waiting for sleep to take her from this place.

He is not coming.

 

++

The morning comes and she has not slept. The light breaks through the darkness that consumed her in the late hours, and she feels as if she’s going colourblind. Everything is darker now; it’s tinted in grey and edged with black, and she feels like she can physically see the colour seeping out of the world along with her soul. She takes a moment to exist as she watches the atmosphere change through her bedroom window, and allows her dreams to die with the night sky.

++

 

It’s been a week. Seven days.

Tessa returns to London after four days of lying in her bed, and says nothing.

Her mother comes after she calls to pick her up, and is quiet on the ride home. Tessa thinks that she can tell that something is drastically wrong, but in typical Kate fashion, she’s chosen to allow Tessa to come to her. That’s what Tessa loves about her mother. She doesn’t dare to push her unless she really needs it.

This is not one of those times.

Tessa suspects that Kate can sense the all-consuming devastation inside of her—but can recognize that it cuts so deeply that Tessa could not bring herself to speak if she tried. She wonders if Kate thinks this is about the surgery, or if she knows it’s more. Tessa thinks it’s a bit of both.

She can’t believe she’s going to get this surgery knowing that Scott is not her soulmate.

She walks around her house like a zombie and barely answers her messages. Tessa thinks Scott has texted her a grand total of fifty times. After a couple days, he began to call her, too. But she can’t speak to him. She can’t face him. She can’t even think about him.

She’s watching _Gilmore Girls_ when her phone vibrates on the couch. She glances at it, sees Scott’s name again, and she’s haunted by the flashback of when he texted her on his birthday.

The message is simple this time. _You left without saying goodbye?_ , she reads from her lockscreen. And, well. She supposes it only took him a few days to check on her apartment, so that’s something. Tessa doesn’t think she would’ve had it in her to face him at all, if she were in his position.

She wants to delete it like she did with all the others, but something about this one hurts.

 _Let’s get one thing straight_ , she types, hands shaking. _I didn’t leave. You did._

And maybe that doesn’t make any sense, but to her, it’s true. He’s left her here, empty and numb, and it’s not him that will be alone in the upcoming years. No, Scott will have his soulmate to rely on when he finds her, whoever she is. He’ll hold her hand and kiss her, and maybe he’ll lose Tessa through this, but ultimately it won’t matter. He will replace her. And who will she have?

Fucking no one.

He’s left her all alone, and he doesn’t even have the sense to recognize that fact.

She presses send and blocks his number.

 

–

 

Tessa is sitting on her bed reading _Little Women_ when the doorbell rings.

She knows her mom is downstairs, so she doesn’t bother to get it. She focuses on escaping to another dimension through different characters, because right now she can’t stand to be herself.

These days, she’d kill to be a March sister, which is not a feeling she’d ever previously experienced. Despite all the bullshit and pain she’s dealt with in her life, she’s never wanted to be anyone but herself. But this thing with Scott, and the metaphorical needles that she feels protruding her legs—it’s too much happening at once.

She hears footsteps outside her door and then a knock on the door, and when she tells her mother she can come in, Kate sticks her head inside.

“Honey,” Kate says in a solemn voice, and Tessa looks up to sees the look of dread on her face. “Scott is here.”

She freezes. She legitimately doesn’t move for thirty seconds, and then her mother speaks again, repeating, “Honey—”

“I’m not feeling well,” Tessa cuts her off, stiffly. “Please tell that to Scott.” She reopens her book and stares at the page in front of her, at a loss for what to do next.

Her mother pauses for a full ten seconds—Tessa counts them in her head, eyes focused on the first word on the third sentence of page seventy one—and closes her door without another word.

She can see her fingers shaking as they clutch her book. _Fuck_ , she knew he’d eventually show up, but she didn’t mentally prepare herself enough for this. Despite it being sixteen days since his birthday and nine days since she blocked his number, she can’t decide if she expected him to come to her sooner or later.

Neither is good enough to her, for completely different reasons.

She hears the front door bang shut and can’t bear to look out the window and watch him leave. She just can’t; it might kill her to see him leave her again.

She listens carefully without watching and hears the car engine start, and then a few seconds later, it driving off in the distance. And she exhales, relief overcoming her.

Another day gone by without having to deal with… _this_.

She shakes her head, forcing herself to get back to her book, when she hears the footsteps again. And she sighs, knowing her mother is coming to check up on her.

She’s already gearing up when she hears that knock on her door. “Mom,” she calls out, voice steady despite the shaking of her hands, “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

The door opens despite this, and she shuts her eyes. She really can’t do this right now.

And when she opens them—he’s there.

Her mouth drops. “Scott,” she whispers.

He’s wearing worn sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and his hair is longer than it was the last time she saw him. The circles under his eyes are prominent. He’s still as beautiful as he always is; soft everywhere despite his hardened muscles and sharp facial features.

She remembers, suddenly, and her eyes drop to his wrist—but she can’t see it, because the sweatshirt covers his entire arm. She’s grateful for the barrier.

“Tessa,” he says. His voice is clear and deep, and fuck, it’s been so long since she talked to him. She misses him. She wants him. It hurts to look at him. “Your mom… she left. To give us privacy. She said that she thinks we need space to talk.”

She’s never felt so betrayed. _Traitor_ , Tessa telepathically whispers.

He leans against the door and straightens his back. “And I agree.”

“Well, it’s not looking like I have much of a choice here,” she mutters.

He stills, and swallows. “Have you at least been talking to our therapist like you’re supposed to?” He asks, simple and quiet, without acknowledging her unnecessary comment.

 _No, she doesn’t know about this, we never told her anything_ , Tessa thinks to herself, and then snaps her head up. “Did you tell her?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Come on, T. Of course I told her. I had to talk to _someone_!” He sinks to the floor, back against her door, and sinks his hands into his hair. “God, this entire situation is driving me crazy. And you’re not talking to me at all.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she replies, cutting and sharp. “And you had no right to tell her without consulting me first.”

Scott scoffs. “It’s my life, too. Like, shit, Tess. So much for our communication skills. Did you _actually_ fucking block me?”

She squares her jaw. “Yes,” she says, matter of fact. “If someone isn’t responding to you and you keep badgering them—newsflash, they don’t want to speak to you. So yes, I blocked you. I had a right to do that.”

He looks at her bemused, like she’s grown two heads. “Why are you doing this? Why are you shutting me ou—”

She feels something inside of her snap. “Why did it take you _sixteen fucking days_ to come here?”

He finally shuts his mouth, he finally shuts the fuck up, eyes widening. She can see him holding his breath. Finally, she’s said something of substance.

The silence in the room is stifling. She needs him to get _out_ so she can be alone.

“You know what, Scott?” She can feel her eyes sting. She attempts to compose herself and tells him, honest: “The time… that you took. To come here. That shows me that you don’t actually want me. It shows me that you’ve changed your mind.”

“ _What?_ ” He immediately responds. She can see him bursting at the seams, attempting to quiet his rage, but once a fire starts within him it’s hard to put out. “That’s not true at all! You can’t just make some shit up out of nothing!”

 _It’s not nothing_ , she mentally shouts at him. _It’s something. It’s everything._

She feels her heart stutter, then questions quietly: “If it’s nothing, then what is it?”

He bites his lip, and she can see the sheen in his eyes. He’s already about to cry, and it hasn’t even been ten minutes. He crawls the short distance to her bed from the door, kneeling in front of her on as she sits on her bed, knees hugged to her chest. He looks at her, anguish in his eyes, as he asks her softly, “Are you really going to blame me for needing time to get over the fact that you’re not my soulmate?”

She inhales quickly. It’s the first time she’s heard it acknowledged out loud.

“Tessa,” he starts. “My life literally shattered in the split second that it took for the name to form on my wrist. It might sound cheesy, but it’s true. You _don’t_ understand.”

She shakes her head. He’s right; she might not understand, but she does know how it made her feel, and they can’t change what it means for their future.

She’s so emotionally exhausted by this conversation. “I don’t want to hear it, honestly,” she decides. “Just… I want to see it, and then we’re done here.”

His eyes bulge, mouth falling open. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

She straightens. Then, says with conviction, emphasizing each word: “I want to see it.”

He huffs a laugh, shocked. “Oh, _fuck_ that. I’m not showing you the fucking mark.”

She breathes out her nose and counts to five. “Why not?”

“What’s the point? You don’t need to see it because _I_ sure as hell don’t need to.” She shakes her head again, already knowing where he’s going with this, and she truly cannot hear this right now. “I don’t care who it is, Tessa. What I care about you.”

“Scott, you can’t do this. It’s your soulmate.” _Your soulmate, who it isn’t me_. “Don’t give me this bullshit.”

“But it’s _true_!” And he cracks. Scott cracks and she can see the tears before they come, and then he’s in front of her, on her floor, gasping breaths loud and echoing in her room. Tears falling, ears red. She looks away. She loves him in this moment, and in every moment, for being so unashamed of his feelings and his truth. She wishes she could be more like him.

“Please, baby,” Scott begs quietly, and she looks at him one last time to see him reaching his hand out. Palm, upwards. Waiting for her.

“No,” she whispers, bringing a hand to her mouth, sob caught in her throat. “No. It’s over.”

She had tried so hard to avoid this moment by not doing anything with him. Except the truth is that she did everything with him. She’s loved him with her whole being, and even if they agreed not to cross a line, he’s a part of her now. He’s crossed every line there is, emotionally. He’s crossed every line biologically. It’s as if he’s bled into her, every fibre of his soul penetrating the membrane of her skin, and she allowed it to happen.

She let it happen, but she did not want this. She wanted anything but.

 

–

 

She forces him out of her house and puts the kettle on to make herself hot chocolate.

When it’s done, she pours it into the mug, sits on her couch, cries for the first time since she found out. She’s felt nothing but numbness since it occurred, so crying feels both like a relief and like the proof she needed that her life is falling apart. Now that she’s crying she can admit that it’s a real, solid thing that has happened to her. She doesn’t know how to move from that point.

This is how her mother finds her when she comes back: mug full of hot chocolate and salty tears, destroyed beyond belief, legs shaking from pain and sorrow. Kate drops everything and immediately takes her in her arms, and Tessa rests her head against her mother’s chest, praying that this is some kind of fucked up fever dream.

“Oh, honey,” Kate soothes, running her hands over her hair. “It’ll be okay. It will.”

“Mom,” she says, in a strangled voice, and doesn’t know what else to say other than: “His birthday.”

Her mother stills with her in her arms, and then says, “I know, sweetheart.”

So she knew.

Tessa buries herself further into her mother, not wanting to face the significance of that statement.

“Tessa, I’m so sorry. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t told you when you were so young. I was just doing it to protect you—so you wouldn’t grow up thinking one thing and then be crushed when you found out…” Her voice trailed off. “But I feel like I just made it worse.”

Tessa shakes her head at that, and falls silent. She says nothing. She feels nothing.

 _It wouldn’t have mattered_ , she thinks to herself, tears drying on her face. _I would have fallen for him anyway_.

 

–

 

Five days later, she unblocks his number.

 _I need space_ , she texts him in lieu of informing him that he can contact her again. _I have surgery in exactly a month and I’ll need time to prepare myself. After, I’d like to be alone for a while. I’ll keep you updated with the important stuff, but I just need time, please._

It takes him less than a minute to reply to her saying, _I’ll give you whatever you need, Tessa_.

 _I need you_ , she thinks. _I need you to tell me this is just a stupid nightmare_.

She knows he can’t, though, so she leaves him on read.

 

–

 

She has a panic attack five hours before she goes into surgery.

She didn’t realize how much she’d need Scott, but at this moment in time, she’s so close to breaking and asking him to come see her. She needs him so much; she needs his hug so she can calm the fuck down and relax her nerves like it does for her before their performances. She’s already puked twice this morning out of stress, and she knows that she doesn’t have the sustenance to go another time, but at this rate she thinks she’s going to upchuck a few more times before she’s eventually wheeled in.

She shakes and cries and she can’t fucking _breathe_ and she’s in the bathroom of the hospital waiting. Her sister and her parents are outside waiting with her and not even they can help her calm down right now. She needs Scott. She misses him. She’s falling apart without him.

She can’t do this, she can’t do it alone, she can’t even think without him—

In and out, in and out, in and out, she thinks to herself, inhaling and exhaling in time with her thoughts.

She knew she was going to have to start doing these things alone. She just didn’t expect it to start with a surgery.

She gets her heart rate under control and splashes her face with water. She can do this. She doesn’t need anyone but herself. She can do this.

She chants it until it becomes true; she does it until she can’t even remember his name.

 

++

They slice her open to remove the tissue inside of her legs, piece by piece, until they’re sure the pressure will be relieved. She bleeds on a table for the sake of easing her persisting pain and yet, deliriously, she wishes there was a surgical process to remove Scott from her heart as well. She would endure the pain in her legs if it meant that she could breathe without him.

When she’s under, she dreams about how humans lose pieces of themselves in each other as they grow old. Her mind floats thoughts about the metaphysics behind separating two intertwined souls, and she wonders—if she were to remove all the memories, perceptions, and thoughts of Scott inside of her—would there be anything left afterward? If the concept was even a possibility—the removal of memories—would it be legal to do that to someone who has been so strongly influenced by another person? Or would she simply end up becoming a nonexistent entity, because everything that embodies who she is, somehow, is linked to Scott?

When she wakes up, and has once again regained her sensibility, she feels guilty that her subconscious even dared to think about it.

++

 

Tessa hears that her mother told Scott she’s fine, but she texts him anyway saying, _Hey, I’m in recovery now and fine_ , because she’s alone in the days post-surgery (or, well, not alone, but without Scott) and he’s not here. She knows that she told him to give her space, but Tessa doesn’t think she truly knew how much space she would need. Which, she’s coming to realize, is not this much.

Maybe she needed space from the Scott she’s in love with, and the Scott that is deluded enough to think that he might be in love with her when he has a soulmate out there, but… friend Scott is someone that she has relied on since she consciously understood the concept of friendship. He’s someone that she genuinely enjoys being around, who always knows what to say to cheer her up, who knows her favourite song and mixed drink and contestants from _The Bachelor_.

(Sometimes she wishes he could split himself in two, so she can look at one of them without wanting to cry. Sometimes she wishes he could split himself in two, so she can hold one of their hands while she cries over the uncertainty of her career.)

The hardest breakups, sometimes, are from the relationships you hadn’t even realized you were in to begin with.

 

–

 

Tessa fills her two months post-surgery with some light reading when she’s not embarking on her recovery process.

Light reading is not so light, not in the slightest; emotionally, it is the heaviest topic of literature that she could have possibly chosen. But Tessa wants to know everything there is to know that she didn’t allow herself to look into before, ever since that fateful day when she discovered her family carried a gene deficiency all those years ago.

Light reading to Tessa consists of diving deep into the mythology behind soulmates and the existence of non-soulmate couples in the 21st century. It’s fairly common that two people choose to be together despite not being soulmates, actually, from what she’s read so far. But that’s not the issue. The issue is the legality of it all.

See, it’s not illegal to be together if you aren’t soulmates, Tessa knows. But, she learns that soulmate couples are granted particular rights that non-soulmate couples are not. Soulmates are essentially like marriage but stronger, more respected and more honourable. Marriage, she’s always known, is simply a piece of paper that grants you some rights; marriage is the law. Soulmates, while also law, are a more undeniable inevitability from the higher powers of the universe; they’re a part of your being, something that cannot be disputed because it is above a physical entity. Soulmates are beyond government; marriage is government.

Tessa takes her time to learn about the cases behind non-soulmate couples attempting to fight for their legal rights—simple things like hospital visits, adoption possibilities, tax cuts—and finds herself coming across a few that give her hope. But she comes across much more that make her understand, and fear, what they’d truly be fighting against here.

(Not that Scott wants her, she emphasizes to herself. They have barely spoken in the past three months. She doesn’t even know if he’s the same person anymore.)

Then, she comes across a staggering statistic: _87% of soulmate couples last their lifetimes. Only 6% of official, registered non-soulmate marriages last prior to a death occurring._

Attempts at non-soulmate relationships are rarely successful.

They were, she supposes, doomed from the start.

She can’t lose something she never had a chance at, anyway.

 

–

 

Tessa returns to Canton a week early.

Her physiotherapist has cleared her and she’s set to return to the rink, if she chooses to. She decides to take it easy because she’d rather prolong seeing Scott, and texts him to inform him that she’ll be returning sometime in the next week. She leaves it ambiguous so it’s completely up to her when that is, for her own benefit.

Her mother drops her off at her apartment and she lasts a grand total of five hours before she drives herself to Arctic Edge.

She shouldn’t be there yet; she wanted to take time to rest. She hopes Scott isn’t there, but if the general schedule hasn’t changed in the three months she’s been away, it’s a late practice session time, which he’s not usually at. That’s usually reserved for the pairs skaters.

She sneaks into the rink from the side entrance which no one uses, and peaks around the seating in the rink when she sees it.

Scott is here. Talking to a girl.

And not just talking to her, Tessa realizes after a moment of observing. He’s _flirting_ with this girl, shamelessly, while the girl—a brunette that seems to be of average height—giggles and plays with her hair. The girl clearly likes whatever Scott is saying to her. And Tessa can’t entirely see his face, only the side of it really, but she can tell he’s smiling at her too.

Any hope she had left, and all the research she’s done, flies out the window when she realizes that, shit, Scott really, actually, _truly_ , does not want her. He’s moved on in the three months they’ve been apart.

While she was researching the possibility of them ever being together, Scott was replacing her with this person.

She watches them, and can’t help but wonder the biggest question of all: is that who Tessa thinks she is?

 

–

 

Three days later, when Tessa has gotten over her initial shock and has mentally prepared herself for all possible situations, she tells Scott she’s returned.

 _Back in Canton_ , she tells him over text. _Want to grab coffee at the place you like in an hour?_

He replies five minutes later agreeing, and she immediately drives over to the cafe to settle in.

She’s not going to say anything about it, she tells herself. She’s going to go about it pretending like this is not happening at all. Because if she were to acknowledge it, she can already see the conversation playing out like she’s a jealous girlfriend, and she has no right to be. They were never together, he never promised her anything, nothing is happening. This is fine.

Scott sits down across from her when he gets there, with a greeting and a smile, and that preparation all unceremoniously flies out the window.

“So,” she says, and the first words out of her mouth are: “You’ve replaced me.”

He slumps into his chair as if he’s in shock. “ _Excuse me_?” He replies. His tone is angry, and too loud for their place of being, and stupidly, it makes her want to push him even further. _He’s_ angry? _He_ is? What about how she’s supposed to feel?

She’s done saying nothing. “I saw you. With her.”

Scott looks at her, jaw clenched, and says nothing. Which says everything.

They sit there in silence for a minute, staring at each other. And then, bravely, she asks, “Is she…”

She trails off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

He looks away from her eyes, refusing to confirm, and she knows then.

So. She _is_.

“What’s her name?” She whispers, once it’s settled in.

He swallows. “Jessica,” he says flatly. “But, T—”

“Jess,” she says tonelessly. “Ha, similar to my name. Tess. Are you sure it didn’t say Tess, and not Jess when you checked it?”

The bone in his jaw jumps, and it’s the only indication that he heard her fucked up joke.

Suddenly, she wants to know everything. “When did you meet?”

He shakes his head. “Tessa, forget it. She’s a pairs skater who was dating her partner before she got her soulmark, too. She doesn’t want me, and I don’t want her.”

Tessa squints at him, not understanding. “But I saw you together the other day. You’re not just friends. There’s something more there.”

He looks at her, taking in her features, and then shrugs hopelessly, mumbling, “I don’t know. I guess I thought that I might as well try to understand what the world was thinking.” He rubs his palms to his eyes, and then says clearly: “You weren’t here anymore. And I missed you. And I wanted to see if this damn soulmate thing was worth missing you,” he says, voice honest and raw and more vulnerable than she could ever bring herself to be. “And it’s not.”

She’s silent for a few beats, and then says: “That’s a shitty explanation.” She doesn’t want to hear any of his sugarcoated bullshit.

“It’s not a fucking excuse, or explanation, or _anything_ , Tessa,” he mutters. “I just wanted you to know what I was feeling.” And then sighs, furrowing his brows. “Not all of us are good at being alone, you know.”

That statement hits her, and the force of it immediately making her eyes well up. “What do you know about loneliness?” She asks him, low and bitter. “I went through finding out that I wasn’t yours _alone_. I went through surgery _alone_. I went through recovery _alone_. All the while you were here, finding your soulmate, and _being with her_. Sure, your situation might not be perfect. But you’ll work it out. And then what will I be? _Alone_.”

He shakes his head, amazed. “I know a lot of that is true, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t differentiate between what was too much space and not enough for you,” he says slowly, “But the rest of it? You sure do make up a lot of shit in your head, T.”

This is, she thinks, the most dramatic disaster she’s ever seen.

She attempts to get her tear ducts under control and says, shakily, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

He looks up immediately at that, panic in his eyes, searching hers for the truth, and says: “No, Tessa. Yes, you can. _We_ can. Listen… I understand that you’re choosing not to be with me…”

 _It’s not that I don’t want to be with you_ , her mind whispers. _It’s that I can’t handle you leaving me, ever, of the inevitability of you choosing her over me. I can’t do it. I wouldn’t survive it._

“But we need this. We can do this. This can’t have all been for nothing. We need to… I don’t know… figure this shit out,” he says.

She knows he’s right, but she has the mental strength to untangle the mess that is their lives.

“I don’t know how to skate with you and come to terms with this situation,” she says, tired and honest.

Scott sighs, and then says the one dreaded word she was expecting: “Therapy.”

Therapy. Together.

Something she’s been avoiding since she got out of surgery.

Tessa has continued to see her personal therapist in London by herself, at the request of their counsellor in Canton, but she hasn’t been to an appointment with Scott since the week before his birthday. She cancelled on their ‘mandatory’ appointment prior to her surgery, not wanting to face him. But she knows now, that there’s no way they’re going to be able to move forward with their skating, or even begin to prepare themselves for the Olympics next year, if they don’t do therapy together. At this point, it’s a necessity.

She takes a deep breath and simply says, “Fine, we’ll do it.”

Scott looks relieved, as if he was terrified he’d have to fight her on it. Which was not an unlikely possibility. “Okay. Um. She knows what’s going on because I told her, so…”

“Yes,” she says drily. She wishes Scott had found his own distant therapist like she did, but alas. “I remember.”

He nods, not looking her in the eyes. “We just need to be honest with her. She can help us.”

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “Maybe. I’m kind of tired, now, so—”

She finally takes a good, proper look at him, and notes that he looks impossibly fatigued. Has he been sleeping? As her eyes drift downward, they come to his neck and the chain around it. And she pauses. His cross is no longer there.

It shocks her. She’s so curious, but she looks away from the bare chain around his neck, and wonders if he’s really okay, or if he’s finally admitted defeat and lost his faith in destiny. She didn’t think he could, but the lack of pendant speaks for itself.

Scott doesn’t seem to notice her absent mindedness and asks, “Oh, okay. Are you feeling alright?” He seems so concerned, and she hates the look on his face because it makes her feel things. She can’t stand to look at him anymore.

“Yes, Scott, I’ve texted you saying I’m fine. And I am.”

“Right, right,” he mumbles. “So, you’re going?”

“I’m going,” she confirms, packing away her wallet. “Tell me when you set up the appointment and I’ll see you then.”

She gets up and leaves without saying goodbye. She’s tired of goodbyes.

 

–

 

Therapy, initially, goes horrendously.

They keep up their sessions while they train for the season, deciding on something daring like Pink Floyd for their free dance. It’s definitely a departure from Umbrellas, if there is one. It highlights their versatility as a pairing, but all Tessa can think is that they were _forced_ to be versatile this year. She doesn’t think they could have handled skating to a romantic, loving program like Umbrellas after everything that has happened.

And remembering that a year ago, skating to Umbrellas came as easy as breathing, shows her just how much has changed in the past six months.

She continues to be bitter and he continues to be frustrated, arguing with her over every single snide comment she manages to make. And he doesn’t seem to understand the devastation she must have felt when The Incident happened. All he seems to know is his own devastation, and he thinks of it as similar to the kind she felt, but in reality—it’s a completely different brand. His devastation was a loss of faith, while her devastation was a loss of _him_.

It takes five sessions for them to go the entire hour without shouting at the other. It takes seven sessions for Tessa to admit how hurt she was when he left her completely alone during recovery, barely checking on her. It takes ten sessions for Scott to apologize from a genuine place and tell her that he only did so because he, himself, was at a loss for how to move forward.

(It takes sixteen sessions for her to come to terms with the fact that this is how it is, and that she must finally accept that they won’t ever be together.)

It takes eighteen sessions for Scott to mutter at forearm, wristband covered over the mark, “I don’t even want this stupid thing; it’s ridiculous and a fucking joke that your name isn’t here.”

She inhales quickly when he says that, and then says furiously: “Scott, you have absolutely no idea what you’re saying.”

He tries to dispute her, but their therapist cuts in and asks her, “Tessa, do you have any idea why you might feel so strongly that Scott must be required to connect with his soulmark?”

She stiffens for a while, thinking in silence. The truth is that she does know why it bothers her. It partially has to do with jealousy—but not jealousy over Jessica. Jealousy that he received this beautiful gift from the soulgods, whoever they are, pointing him in a certain direction, and he has no respect for the fact that it’s his _right_. And Tessa doesn’t think she and Scott can fight against the world and what it believes to be the truth. Who are they, two mere human beings, to the greater picture?

She admits it, honestly, “Scott feels obligated to me because of our history, and he’s convinced himself that all of our baggage means there’s something deeper there. So he’s rejecting his soulmark and he really should not.”

“You can’t tell me how _I_ feel, Tess,” Scott protests. “And I’m not required to connect with my soulmate. There aren’t any rules, here.”

 _There are unofficial ones_ , Tessa thinks. And Scott has a blatant disregard for all of them.

It takes twenty one sessions—the exact number that changed her life—for her to tell Scott that she’s ready to move on.

“I don’t even care about the soulmate thing anymore,” she says convincingly, and if she’s truthful, she knows it’s only 85% accurate. “I’ll be happy for you regardless of what you choose. But I miss my best friend,” she admits. “You were always there, and now you never are. And that crushes me more than the fact that we… aren’t soulmates.”

“Of course I want that too, T.” But Scott has always had a terrible poker face, and he looks like he wants to argue with every fibre of his being. “Although I don’t agree with this idea of giving up on us.”

“You’re still in contact with Jessica,” she says, exasperated. “What do you want from her? What do you want from me? What do you want, Scott?”

“I want _you_ ,” he replies. “That has never changed despite everything.”

 _Then why weren’t you there when I went through surgery?_ She wants to ask. _You’ve never listened to me before._

 _Why did you find her and accept her into your life?_ She wants to ask. _If you don’t want her, you have a terrible way of showing it._

 _How can I trust you when it was you that made me build this hope that we could be in my mind?_ She wants to ask, most of all. _If it weren’t for your optimism, and secure belief that the world might account for our feelings, I wouldn’t have been as devastated when it didn’t happen._

But she knows it’s too unfair to put any of that on him, so she says none of it. “I’d like for us to try to be friends again,” she says instead. “I think I’m ready to do that.”

Their therapist cuts in. “That’s wonderful, Tessa, and I’m glad you’re opening up that side of yourself to Scott again,” she says. “It’s vital to your partnership that your connection remains intact, and you’re both at your most mentally healthy when your friendship is working.”

 _That’s because we grew up codependent idiots_ , she wants to say.

Their therapist suggests that if they want their friendship to go back to normal, they must do the things they used to do together again. Watching movies, cooking, going to dinner, those simple things… it will help build their friendship.

Scott holds out his hand for her to hold, and it takes her ten seconds for her to compartmentalize the movement without putting real emotion behind it.

She takes his hand and holds it in their natural dance hold, and she can see Scott looking at her. “We can do this,” she says, turning to him.

He looks at her eyes, searching, and then flickers his gaze to their non-intertwined fingers, and replies, “Yeah. We can do this.”

She’ll let him have her again, in some way, but she’ll need to be strong to keep that piece of her heart guarded from now on.

 

–

 

That night, after therapy, Scott sends Tessa a text.

 _I’ve been doing some thinking. I know that for some reason, you don’t believe that you mean more to me than her_ , she reads. _But you do. You always will. You’re a part of me now, Tess. I can’t help that I don’t want her. Maybe the universe intended for her to be my soulmate, at the beginning. But by some change of fate, you turned out to be… it, for me. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to you that I mean it. We’ll be friends like you want, I promise, we’ll go back to being best friends. I’m just letting you know that I’ll never stop holding out hope that one day, we can be together._

It’s interesting, she thinks as she lies in her bed, stunned, remembering the heat of his palm against hers. She thought the removing of his cross meant he had lost his blind faith in the cosmic powers above them. But it seems that he hasn’t.

In a weird way, it comforts her to know that despite the shifting ground beneath her, some things never change.

 

–

 

They go back to competition and it’s both the hardest and easiest thing she’s ever had to do.

Difficult, because they are thoroughly unprepared for the season. Mentally, they’ve both been off their game because of a lack of training and their focus on rebuilding their connection. This is the least they’ve ever been able to practice before their big events.

Easy, because she has to put no emotion behind their program. She can dance, she can perform, she can act—but she can’t pretend that she’s in love when in reality, all her feelings involving love are filled with heartbreak these days.

Scott is attentive and caring, and there are little moments where she can see the old Scott coming back to her. Not that it was ever his choice to leave. That was almost entirely on her, refusing to look at him properly, because if she did, she’d see _everything_. And that is too much for her.

They get through the season and celebrate enthusiastically in a group setting when it’s over, and she can’t help but realize when she looks at him, that it doesn’t seem to hurt as much anymore.

She wonders if it’s because she’s numb to it, or if she really is moving past everything, finally.

 

–

 

The Olympic season arrives before she expects it but, surprisingly, she almost feels ready to take it on. Best of all, Mahler comes together like a dream.

“Are you sure we can do this, Tess?” Scott checks in with her in the middle of one of Marina’s choreographic practices, eyes trained on her carefully. Always watching, now, but never touching. Never stepping over the lines she has placed.

She knows what he means. Can they handle skating to something as loving as Mahler? Their program requires them to channel that romantic energy which they haven’t touched since before his twenty first birthday.

It’s four months until his twenty second birthday, and she thinks that this is a head start to all the good the year might bring. And so she responds, “We can do anything as long as we’re in this together.”

They practice it for a month and she realizes that maybe they really _can_ do this. The energy she’s been feeling—she channels that into the program, and finally, she’s able to have some kind of productive outlet for the emotions she feels for him.

What Tessa has realized in the past eight months is that she loves Scott; she adores him, and that hasn’t changed at all. Slowly, she’s learning to trust him again, too, which is a much harder feat because she does not understand anything about his emotional motivations anymore. All she knows is what he tells her, which isn’t quite a lot where his soulmate is concerned.

See, the thing is that Scott has kept Jessica in his life, and sometimes she wonders if they’ve kissed. Sometimes she wonders if she’s been in his apartment or if he’s shared a meal with her or if they go on dates together. Sometimes she wonders if he’s bared his soul to her.

She loves Scott immensely, but she doesn’t know anything where the other girl is concerned. And so there’s always a gap somewhere in their communication, and in return, she can’t entirely trust him.

After they’re done at the gym one day, Scott asks her to come over for dinner later. “I bought expensive salmon and I have a bottle of chardonnay with your name on it,” he says persuasively.

She responds yes without thinking twice—they’ve done this a few times since the therapy session that cracked them both, and it’s under the orders of their therapist that they spend time together rebuilding their friendship. She takes that especially seriously during an Olympic year. She doesn’t have any issues being his friend, and she adores him, always, so she wants to try and fix this.

That night, she brings him angel cake. She rings his doorbell and holds the cake out and says, “For you.”

Scott laughs and lets her in. “T, we both know that when you bring cake, it’s _never_ really for me. I don’t like cake.”

She winks at him, walking inside and shrugging off her jacket to put it on the couch. “We had a rare off week in an Olympic season, and we return to training tomorrow. One tiny slice won’t hurt.”

“You won’t ever see me judging you, Tess,” he says with a fond smile.

She walks into his kitchen before he does, used to the routine of this by now, and hops onto his counter. “So, where’s this fancy meal of yours?”

He returns a few seconds later, two wine glasses in his hand. “It’s in the oven, but I finished cooking it a while ago. Just keeping it warm.” He places the glasses on the counter, and then leans against it, folding his arms.

She notices it, and she freezes.

His wrist. It’s bare.

She stares for a bit too long, and Scott catches on, looking down, swallowing. “Yeah, uh… I figured it was just us, so. No need to hide it anymore, right?”

He sounds hesitant, like he’s giving her a very important piece of himself. She takes in the look on his face, and she realizes how vulnerable he must be in this moment. “Come here, Scott,” she requests quietly, wiggling her finger at him.

(In the back of her mind, she remembers their first kiss. It started with her on a countertop, too.)

He stills for a moment, and then walks closer to her, stopping right in front of her legs. She reaches down, wraps her hand around his arm, and pulls it toward her.

She’s never seen his mark before, which is something she hadn’t entirely noticed before. She holds his forearm, wrist upwards, and reads the name on it.

 _Jessica Dubé_ , it reads in tiny cursive writing, and seeing it gives her a weird sense of closure. It really _doesn’t_ say anything close to her name. Incredible.

Objectively, it’s a beautiful mark. It looks similar to a tattoo except it’s written in silver ink.

With context, it’s undoubtedly the worst thing that’s ever happened to them.

She hesitates for a moment, looking at it, and she can feel Scott’s burning gaze on her. Too intense, always so intense.

And then she touches it. Light, gentle, with no pressure, just to confirm that it’s real. She can hear Scott’s quiet inhale in front of her as she traces the letters, one by one. A reminder of what is real and what is not.

“It’s beautiful,” she tells him, quietly. Not knowing what else to say.

He gives a low, sharp laugh. “Really? I hate it.”

She looks up at that, and when did he get so close? She can feel his breath on her face, and she immediately backs up a bit on the counter to put some space between them.

“You shouldn’t hate your mark, Scott,” she reprimands, softly. “What it signifies is something of real, true importance.”

“It tells me nothing,” he tells her. He says it like he’s never been more sure of anything else in his life. “And I say that with full honesty.”

She raises her chin. “Then tell me something else with full honesty,” she replies. “If it tells you nothing, then why is Jessica still in your life?”

He takes a beat, and then says simply, “She is, but she’s also… not. Not emotionally. We have an odd friendship,” he says, no warmth in his voice.  

“So it’s just a friendship?” She asks, peering closely at his face. She can’t help it; she’s so curious.

His lip twitches. “I told you it has been from the beginning, T.”

 _I never believed you_ , she wants to say. _I remember how she looked at you_.

“I’m pretty sure she’s in love with her partner,” he continues, looking at her reverently. “So we have a few things in common.”

Her face burns.

_Too close, too close._

She looks at the ground, drops his hand, and then says, “Could I have that glass of wine now?”

He backs off quickly, because he’s perfect at giving her the space she asks for—it’s one of their big problems, after all. “I got you your favourite a few weeks ago,” he murmurs as he opens his fridge, wiggling his eyebrows at her to lighten the mood. “Saw it and thought of you when I was out.”

She looks at the bottle, saying nothing, and then she remembers. Scott prefers red. And he’s still buying white, her preferred _brand_ of white, when he goes shopping. She thinks about what it means, as she takes the glass from him, and takes a careful sip. He keeps the bottle here in his apartment for her, safe, like it’s just waiting for her to consume, and it knocks the wind out of her when the gravity of that knocks the wind out of her—is that the only thing in this house waiting for her?

When he sets the table for dinner, he sits next to her instead of across from her. She notes this carefully, along with the wine anecdote and the things he said to her about Jessica.

She’s quiet throughout the meal, eating diligently as he fills the air with stories, and she spends her time letting her mind run away from her.

Despite all that has happened, he’s still the same Scott. There are some things that have changed: a dullness to his smile, a quieter laugh, the lack of cross. But so many things are the same: his untamed hair, the intense gaze, the unwavering devotion in his eyes.

“Thanks for this, Scott,” she says when she’s finished eating, because she doesn’t know what else to say. Everything of substance in her mind is utter mush right now.

“No prob,” he replies, smiling at her easily. “Want to see a movie?”

“Uh, I should go, I think.”

He watches her carefully, and nods his head. Whatever he sees, she doesn’t know.

She helps him clear the table, quickly, and then makes her way to the door. She slips on her shoes, and then turns to leave.

“Wait,” he says a bit loudly from the room over. _I can’t wait_ , she thinks. _I need to get out of here_. “Your jacket.”

“Oh, thank you,” she says graciously. It is cold outside.

She reaches out to take it from him, but then he says, “Let me.”

She really, really, should not let him. But something inside her wants him to, so she does. She turns around and lets him slide her jacket through her arms and onto her body, and he’s so close that she can feel the heat of his body behind hers, warming her despite him being too far away.

_Too close, too far._

He runs his hands up her arms, brushing her hair aside. His hands are nowhere and yet they’re everywhere. She can feel him move a bit closer, and then he’s pressed against her back, hands on her biceps. He nuzzles his nose against her temple, his breath grazing her cheekbone, and whispers in her ear, “I miss you, baby.”

She closes her eyes, losing herself in this. She misses him too.

She lets herself learn back against him, and that’s all the sign he needs before he pulls her harder against his chest, hugging her from behind. She melts into him, and he presses his cheek against hers.

“I miss you too,” she tell him. She can hear her heartbeat pounding through her ears, and the blood rushing through her veins. The last time she felt this hypersensitive was when he visited her before his birthday last year.

(And then she jumped him, got rejected, and cried. Not one of her prouder moments.)

She feels his lips brush her temple, gently kissing her. Again and again and again, lips lingering longer against her skin the more he kisses her there, and that’s when her restraint dies. She turns around in his arms, pushes him against his front door, and kisses him with everything inside of her.

It happens so fast that she doesn’t even get a chance to register the look on his face, but he responds immediately and eagerly. It’s interesting, actually, how he seems less caught off guard this time than he was the last time she kissed him. Tessa can still recall the dopey look on his face from that night after she pulled his shirt off from him.

This time, she’s in her jacket, and he’s in short-sleeved shirt, and she’s kissing him with a ferocity that she’s never fully felt before. Or maybe she’s never allowed herself to experience this level of emotions before this moment. Her lips are slotted between his, pulling at his arms so they wrap around her tighter, crushing him to her and against the door, and she reflects.

Their first kiss: beautiful and quiet. Their second kiss: seductive and terrifying. Their third kiss: intense and… loving.

She didn’t expect that, though, the loving part. He kisses her with care, with great enthusiasm and complete intent, like he’s been preparing for this moment—waiting for it—for the past eight months that their lips have been apart. He puts everything into this kiss; all of his passion, all of his heart. She feels it in the tingle of her lips when they part, the caring caress he gives her.

 _Too far, too far_ , she thinks, pulling him closer. She wants to do everything with him.

His lips trail over her jawline, brushing near her weak spot, and she shudders. They trail down her neck, bruising her skin, marking her, and she lets him. She moans against him, hiking up her leg on his body, pressing her groin against his hip. She wants him to mark her and make her his.

And when she registers that thought, it brings her to a standstill, because she isn’t his to mark.

She pulls away from him, panting, and he whimpers, lips following her. His nose brushes against her pulse point, and he murmurs, “Please don’t go.”

She replies, eyes hazy and brightness dimmed, “I don’t belong to you, Scott.”

And leaves, without looking at his face.

 

–

 

She goes into practice the next day storming, determined, and prepared.

“We need to pretend that didn’t happen,” she says instantly, after she’s made a beeline toward him. She takes in the determined look on his face, and wonders what _he_ has to be determined about.

“I thought you’d say that,” is all he says in response, jaw clenched.

She nods, ignoring the part of her that aches for him. She’s gotten used to ignoring that part of herself by now. “We need to stay focused, and we need to keep our fight alive. Meryl and Charlie are getting better, and we can’t afford any missteps this season. We need to just… forget about that. To beat them. For us. For the Olympics. For Canada.”

Scott simply looks at her, and says as if prepared, “Alright, Tess, we’ll do it your way. But I’ll promise you this—I’m going to prove to you that we have a fight in us, for everything.”

And the thing is, in her mind, she knows he means their partnership and the Olympic gold. But in her heart, she wonders if he means something more.

 

++

Here is the truth: missteps come and missteps go through the months that pass, and anxiety builds inside of her along with the numbness in her legs. She cries in Scott’s arms when they lose their Grand Prix Final, she cries in his arms when she falls before a practice at Nationals because her legs have begun to hurt again, and she cries in his arms when she sees how sweetly he looks at her when she’s on the physio table. A reporter asks them one day, disrespectfully, if they are soulmates, and she cries over that, too, after Scott loses his temper and rages so hard that the reporter backs off. There’s so much to think about now, so much to cry over, but she allows the look in his eyes to guide her to the chilling month of February, holding her hand until she’s strong enough to get there herself.

++

 

Vancouver, during the Olympics, is more magical than she expects.

She’s been here before, of course, but there’s something different about the atmosphere this time around. Everyone here feeds off of each other’s excitement and anxiety, and it’s more thrilling than she expected.

But it’s also more emotionally compromising than she expected. She spends hours on the physio table, hoping they can relieve some pain for her, and she and Scott have a series of horrible practices the week before they’re set to perform on the ice.

After a particularly horrendous one, she goes into a closet and cries for thirty minutes. She’s never cried so much as she has in the past year; she thinks she’s certified dehydrated at this point. That’s how Scott finds her when he goes searching for her—weeping into the wall of a broom closet, door open for anyone to see her.

“Tess,” he says softly, reaching his hand out to soothe her hair. It’s dark and dusty and much too warm inside here but she doesn’t care. “Please don’t cry, it will be okay.”

“We can’t even do _floor practice_ right, Scott,” she says shakily. “How the fuck are we gonna do this?”

“Hey,” he says, and then cups her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. He’s wearing a long sleeved tee, and he uses it to wipe the tears on her cheeks. “Remember what we always say. All you gotta do is look at me, and stop thinking so hard. And the same goes for me,” he whispers. “Just look in my eyes, be grounded in that, and remember that we’re us.”

She closes her eyes and memorizes that, repeating it in her head until she knows she’ll never forget it.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s get something to eat.”

They go to the cafeteria together, his hand in hers, and she sees Jessica in the corner watching them. Suddenly, she wants to pull away, so she does.

He looks at her when she does, and then follows her awkward gaze to Jessica. “Seriously?” He asks, dry. He pulls her back under his arm, and waves at Jessica happily.

Jessica waves back, and Tessa is stumped.

Scott watches her, takes in her sense of shock, and laughs. “You really are dense, aren’t you?” He asks, fondly. He kisses her forehead and then shuffles them along to pick up more fruit at the lunch area.

“I’m not dense,” she responds haughtily as they sit down in their chairs. “I’m just respectful.”

Scott winks at her, biting into his apple with a loud ‘crunch’. “Don’t be.”

She shoves a strawberry into her mouth and shoves thoughts of this out of her mind. She’s not nearly emotionally stable enough to comprehend what he might mean right now.

 

–

 

They put time aside before their free dance to hug for a full five whole minutes, needing the comfort of it to anchor them in the moment.

She presses herself, ear against the pulse of his neck, and she thinks as she melts into him that sometimes home has a heartbeat. She feels his hands soothing up and down her back, relaxing her nerves, remembering what he told her after her breakdown last week. All she has to do is look at him.

So when she pulls away, she does. She takes him in as he takes her in, breathing too close to his face than is necessary until she’s not sure whose breath is whose.

He tucks a stray hair behind her ear, then cradles her face in his hands. “Hey, T?”

“Yes?” She whispers back.

He leans his forehead against hers, noses brushing slightly, and says with his eyes closed: “I love you.”

She closes her eyes. The more he says it, the more she begins to believe it. “I know,” she replies, because at this point, she does.

He opens his eyes, searches her face, and whatever he finds there makes him smile. He lets go of her face, and pulls up both the sleeves on his costume, holding his wrists upward for her. And that’s when she sees it.

 _Jessica Dubé_ , she can still read in silver. Crossed out with two black lines. _Tessa Virtue_ , it says on the other wrist. In gold.

Goosebumps raise over her skin. “How?” is all she says, staring at it. _Didn’t that hurt?_ She wonders. _A mark is magical. How did he get that done?_ She wonders. _Does he really love her that much that he willingly put her name on his skin?_ She wonders.

When she looks back up at him, eyes misty, she sees it. It’s in his eyes and it’s in his smile: she is his choice.

She is, for the first time in her life, speechless.

“When?” She asks softly, when he doesn’t answer her first question.

“A week before we left for Vancouver. I know this might seem like the wrong time to show you, but—”

“No,” she says, eyes stinging. “You were right.”

He was right. Of course he would know when she needed it most. Before they skated to Mahler on Olympic ice.

He knew her better than anyone.

He looks at her with no questions. Nothing. And she sees it all, then. He asks nothing of her. He needs nothing from her. He doesn’t need her to agree, or to reciprocate. She realizes all these things in quick succession. This is Scott—beautiful, brave Scott, who coated every action of his own with heart and soul and fight. He told her he would fight for them. In her heart she had hoped he meant this, but she didn’t quite believe her heart most of the time. Scott always did. Scott always knew.

She holds her hand out, silently, and lets it speak for herself. Palm, upwards. Waiting for him.

They have been here before, in this exact moment, but _now_ … now, it is her turn to be brave.

“Let’s do this,” she says with a gentle smile. She has never felt more at peace in her life.

They don’t have time to talk about it, then, but they will soon. Soon.

He looks into her eyes intently, as if searching. Then, eventually, smiles back, and places his hand in hers. Full of heart, full of hope, full of love. “Okay.”

They leave the boards together—hand in hand, heart in throat.

She might win gold that night for ice dance. She might accomplish all her dreams. She might become the youngest female figure skater to win gold at her first Olympics.

And despite all of those wonderful, incredible possibilities… she can’t help but feel, deep inside of her, that she had won something much greater than that before her blade even graced the ice.

 

++

 _Sometimes the universe can be flawed_ , Tessa thinks that night, ribbon around her neck and legs intertwined with Scott’s. _Sometimes it makes mistakes._ And it’s true. Sometimes the human race needs to fight for the things that should be their birthright. Things like equality, love, acceptance, and happiness. They shouldn’t _have_ to, but sometimes they must.

Tonight, Tessa is thankful that Scott has chosen to fight, despite knowing that it won’t be easy. They will have have to fight to ensure that this relationship sees its way to the other side. They will have to fight to earn their legal rights, as unofficial soulmates. But Scott doesn’t seem to care about what anyone has to say.

All he seems to know is that he loves her, and that it is enough to get them through this. And Tessa is finally beginning to realize that it actually might be.

From the very beginning, Scott has wanted to fight against the higher powers. He might have struggled along the way, because he is human and sometimes as humans we are lost, but he also never lost sight of what he wanted. Tessa is tired of fighting all the love she feels for him, and she’s tired of pushing away the love he gives to her. She wants to start embracing it.

He has successfully convinced her that he’s sure of this. And it’s not that she wasn’t sure—really, it isn’t. She was simply scared, that’s all. Who wouldn’t be? But of course, at the end of the day, their love is the kind worth everything.

Scott kisses her hairline, his hand pressed against her heart, feeling it beating, racing, alive. He whispers _I love you_ , quiet and sure. And she knows. She knows.

 _Fuck destiny_ , Tessa thinks. _We are destiny_.

 

 **FIN**.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on my [writing Tumblr](http://falsettodrop.tumblr.com), or for fandom posts (where I actually post about these two, and figure skating), on my [sideblog](http://viewsfromthestyx.tumblr.com).


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